Running On Empty

INTRUDER FROM THE SKY (Write to Rank 2023 Round 4)

Her village had burned.

Endra wailed. She had been gone merely one day, signing to the sky about the flashing silver birds the Stalkers had observed of late.

Incint, her tame hunting glarath, padded at her heels. He lashed his scaly, yellow-striped tail, emitting distressed growls. The ridge of hair along his supple spine rose into hackles.

Endra ran from one dwelling to another, from the gathering circle to the animal pens, screaming at each terrible find. Everywhere she found the bodies of her family and friends, scorched, their limbs curled and stiff. At each, she stopped and signed a death prayer to the sky, her hands shaking.

The last was Onia. Endra collapsed, cradling the woman's face in her hands. She couldn't let go long enough to make the prayer signs.

"My love...who did this?" Endra whispered. She gestured a damning curse into the ground, then, "Oh!"

She was knocked sideways as Incint leaped, pushing her with his great front paws. She rolled, grunting, down a nearby slope and into a shallow ravine.

Her baffled, swollen eyes recoiled at a brilliant, unnatural, and silent blast of light. Incint's cry of pain met her ears.

Her vision was now obscured by an incandescent rage.

She crawled down the ravine, quick and silent as any of the village's Stalkers, and into a tunnel. She knew this passage well; the spring that suppled their water had carved it.

Dirt and leaves showered down behind her, shaken loose by heavy footsteps. Endra held her breath until they passed.

Who? No one from another village would walk like that, never mind the haunted flash of light.

Endra crawled the length of the tunnel, shivering in the cold water. It took more effort than it had as a child.

She emerged at the other end and crept along the outskirts of the village, using the overgrown bushes as cover. Every time she came across a dead Stalker, she picked up a weapon.

Endra was Keeper of the Signs—a healer—but all her people had at least rudimentary hunting skills. She imagined the fury and terror from her fallen family and friends lending her strength and speed.

A voice spoke her tongue, rasping and booming louder than any she'd ever heard. "Come out. You will not be harmed."

Endra crawled through the underbrush until she could see into the center of the village. A short distance away, she spied a bizarre creature: limbs like hers, but covered in a shiny, somehow bloated looking hide, and with an enormous, spherical white head atop the shoulders.

Her mind tumbled, shocked at the almost demonic sight of the intruder. Endra had never believed in demons, not even as Keeper of the Signs. She thought possession probably had more to do with sickness of the body...but superstitious doubt froze her for long breaths.

Did the silver birds in the sky bring it?

Then she saw the slumped form of Incint, barely visible on the other side of the gathering circle.

Endra stood and loosed an arrow at the intruder—she had only one, and no time to aim properly. Her shot spiraled too far to her right, tearing through the edge of the creature's abdomen. It fell to its knees, clutching at its side with strangely jointless fingers. No blood appeared, but it writhed and contorted in distress, its unnatural skin shriveling.

She burst into the stone-paved clearing, wielding a carved wooden club. The creature saw her and gained its feet, now...rooting in a pocket? Was the grotesque skin clothing?

Endra didn't waste more time in thought. She swung the club with all her strength, and the being reacted, raising its other arm to block the blow. She thought she heard a strange muffled cry from the creature as the club connected hard.

She didn't mistake the crunch of a fracturing bone.

So you DO have bones to break!

The intruder straightened and shoved her with its good arm. Before she stumbled to her knees, she saw a dark rectangular patch adhered over the hole her arrow had made. The creature's skin inflated.

Endra was so taken aback she almost failed to dodge the creature's kick. It wore dirty white boots, awkward but heavy enough to smash her skull. She rolled to her left. Her hand found a rock the size of her fist, and she hurled it at the being's bulbous head.

The rock bounced off with a hollow thunk that would have been comical in other circumstances. And then she saw the face, enclosed behind a transparent window in the sphere: a pointed nose, wide glittering eyes, pale, almost glowing skin. It could not be of her world.

And so it must carry its own air. Ours must be poison. The revelation shook her once more.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Incint.

Endra fought to keep her gaze from tracking him, and her mouth from crying out in relief at the glarath's survival.

Growling curses that would have made her grandfather cringe, Endra sprang to her feet. She circled to the right, waving the club overhead with one hand and making a sign—no more than a wiggling of her fingers—in the other.

Incint obeyed, crouching low and mirroring her.

The being's mouth moved. "You cannot win against us, little girl," broadcast from the helmet. The movements of its lips did not match the words. Its good hand snaked to its pocket and pulled out a round black object, like an elongated onyx stone...a stone with a sinister, eldritch red light blinking at her.

"Incint!" Endra screamed, and dove to the ground.

The glarath pounced. His claws, long as the intruder's fingers, raked down its back, and his rows of teeth sank into its shoulder. His weight, at least the equal of the creature's, flung it to the dirt.

The stone emitted a malevolent, alien buzzing, and a ray of white light burst forth. The light struck the ground not an arm's length away from Endra's feet, and small rocks exploded in a shower of shards. A few embedded themselves into her legs, none large enough to do more than sting.

She sat up and smashed the evil stone with her club, but the intruder collapsed, writhing and gasping and moaning on the ground. As the villagers must have done as they died.

Endra called to Incint, and when the glarath reached her she wrapped her arms around the animal's neck. She buried her face in the bristly fur while the intruder expired behind her, its trapped air loosed by the glarath's claws and teeth.

Incint groaned, and Endra saw that the thick scales along his left flank were burned. Wild glaraths were difficult to injure even by an experienced Stalker, and it had been a glancing shot; the intruder's horrible bright weapon had done little more than stun him.

"Let's go," Endra whispered to him. "We need to hide somewhere safe, then find help."

So many silver birds. There would be other intruders.

She paused before they left, raising her arms to sign. Then her hands dropped.

The sky no longer spoke to her.